[jdonn]

I don't see that the arguments for penalty in this case are any different or more convincing than they are in the multitude of other cases where expert consensus is to play a double as values with no sensible action. Yes there are (rare) occasions you have a trump stack and can't nail them. So what? Sometimes partner doubles for you and you get them anyway, and sometimes you just accept an undoubled penalty (which is fine!), but you never leave yourself without a good option on a competititve hand with values.

I think the only difference in this case is that it's less thought about and less widely accepted.

Actually I thought of a reason you would even less want to play this double as penalties. You already didn't pass 1♣X for penalties, and that was before a raise. How likely are you to want to nail 2♣ for penalties after finding out responder has club support?

[Jlall]

Penalty is fine in this specific auction. Probably if I had to make an agreement and there were no memory constraints ever, I would slightly prefer penalty. However, on every similar auction like 1D X p 1S p p 2D X, and 1H X p 1S p p 2H X I would MUCH prefer to play the X as takeout, and I have never made any distinction for this one auction, and in general hate making agreements for 1 auction that go against your entire set of meta agreements for similar auctions.

[Jlall]

jdonn, on Jan 5 2010, 12:23 PM, said:

I don't see that the arguments for penalty in this case are any different or more convincing than they are in the multitude of other cases where expert consensus is to play a double as values with no sensible action. Yes there are (rare) occasions you have a trump stack and can't nail them. So what? Sometimes partner doubles for you and you get them anyway, and sometimes you just accept an undoubled penalty (which is fine!), but you never leave yourself without a good option on a competititve hand with values.

I think the only difference in this case is that it's less thought about and less widely accepted.

Actually I thought of a reason you would even less want to play this double as penalties. You already didn't pass 1♣X for penalties, and that was before a raise. How likely are you to want to nail 2♣ for penalties after finding out responder has club support?

You are extremely unlikely to ever pass 1C X, even with 5 good clubs and 4 spades. Partner simply has too wide a range of hands for an initial double to make that right (like I don't think many expert players would pass with Axxx xx xx QJ9xx).

Additionally, even though double is penalty, partner is allowed to bid now with 4 spades and a stiff club since your hand is limited, and you've shown 4 spades (assuming you don't play the auto raise with 4 spades system that seems popular now). You get to have your cake and eat it too this way.

Additionally, with 4333 and a max, it's not that important to be able to bid, since partner can freely balance with 2D if he has 3451, can freely balance with 2S with 4, and can freely reopen X with 3442 and extra values. If he has 3442 and minimum values, passing out 2C is probably fine.

Additionally, everyone keeps talking about their opponents "fit" but to my eyes they have not shown a fit yet, RHO never has 5 clubs here, and LHO has shown 3+ clubs. They could easily be in a 7 card fit.

Additonally, RHO has advertised that he has a yarborough, and LHO has advertised a minimum, and 2C X is not game, so there is a high reward and low risk for making a penalty double with 4 good clubs here on something like Axxx xx xx KJTx. And again, I think it is easily possible to have 5 clubs on this auction.

The nature of the opponents bidding that makes it very easy for partner to balance over 2C also makes it much more likely that we have a lucrative penalty.